Toronto politicians and senior city staff operate too intimately with one another and it may require provincial legislation to better define the boundaries between public servants and elected officials.
That was the message from Toronto's ombudsman Fiona Crean, as she delivered the 2011 annual report from the Ombudsman's Office."The space between legislator and public servant is too thin," Crean told reporters Wednesday morning. "It is confusing and it is overlapping. There are questions about who ought to be playing what role? Does a public servant take instruction from an elected representative?"Crean said the city needs a Public Service Act, passed by the provincial legislature, to make clear the roles and responsibilities of Toronto's bureaucracy.Crean made the statement just days after the release of a legal opinion suggesting that Mayor Rob Ford acted illegally and unilaterally in pushing both the province and city-employed officials to change the shape of the former Transit City light rail plan.Crean said that currently, the city has no binding rules for the behaviour of senior city staff and that the current melange of policies and charters - such as the city's whilstleblower protection policy - are often confusing and difficult to compile.And she said that she has observed since starting on the job in 2008 that senior political staff often find themselves having too much direct contact with elected officials."Whether it's on matters of budgeting or some other topic - this legislation would allow them to come forward without fear and give their best advice," she said. "The issue around the Portlands might be one example (of the need for such a policy), Transit City might be another example. Those might be situations where staff have responded in the absence of full council direction."But Crean wouldn't delve into those matters specifically, and said that of her completed investigations, she had not encountered a circumstance in which individual politicians interfered unduly in what should have been staff-led projects.Crean cannot comment on ongoing investigations from her office, but she said she was aware of a great deal of anxiety in the public service."I think this is a very difficult time for public servants," she said. "I think there's an anxiety in the public service for a variety of reasons. We're living in a time of fiscal restraint and I know from a number of discussions with senior officials that this is such a difficult time - that the idea that employees can speak truth to power, that they may be anxious about giving the best neutral policy advice. A public service act may protect them from such fears."